Pages

Monday, 30 April 2012

2 Weeks of Movies - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - 7/10

(some medium-sized spoilers)

This
was another video-store-guy recommendation. I remember seeing the trailers for
this one and thinking that it looked, frankly, rubbish. Apes become
intelligent, rampage, take over the world, lots of CGI and not much else.
Right? Wrong.

Although
I enjoyed the Cloverfield recommendation more, I was glad I watched this one,
if just to prove that you can’t always judge a film by its trailer. Often
trailers show all the best bits, heightening anticipation for a movie that in
reality flops like a dying fish. This was the opposite; the trailers I saw
showed only the rampaging apes scenes, giving the impression of a standard-fare
disaster movie propping itself up with the Planet of the Apes name. In reality,
the rampaging apes were one tiny bit at the end of a more thoughtful and
complex film that was actually ridiculously emotional (I blame James Franco’s
puppy face).

The
film was surprisingly slow-paced, building the main plot up slowly and taking
time to actually make the audience like the little ape and his carer. This was
done well. Really well, actually. I’m not an ape person; for example, I’m constantly
astonished by people who manage to find monkeys cute (yes yes I know a monkey
isn’t technically an ape). That means that this film really had to convince me
to feel something for the main ape character, Caesar, which I would have felt
automatically for, say, a kitten. But it did manage to. We saw Caesar grow up,
we saw his wonderful child-like innocence and curiosity, we saw his love for
his human carers, and we saw him begin to interact with the outside world. Then
we saw his confusion, his slowly dawning realisation that he is not like
others, trapped between the human and animal worlds, too intelligent to fit in.
When he poignantly asks Will, his carer, if he is a pet, I actually felt myself
go cold and my eyes begin to prick.

Then
we saw Caesar’s dismay and his depression, and his agony as he was taken away
from the only family he has ever known and put with a bunch of apes that he had
no idea how to relate to. We also saw Will’s desperation to get him back. For
him, Caesar was like an adopted child, wrenched cruelly away from him. This was
all scripted, filmed, and acted so well that it was completely believable and extremely
heartbreaking. The CGI used to craft Caesar’s face and his expression-filled
eyes was perfect, and Andy Serkis’ acting was spot on. The other apes were also
CGI-ed and acted to perfection, adding more pathos as well as a welcome touch
of humour to the film. We also get to find out what Draco Malfoy does in his
summers away from Hogwarts. Torture apes, apparently.

Although
the general story and its twists and turns are nothing surprising – in fact,
they are even slightly cliché for science fiction fans – everything plays out
so well that this is easily forgiven. The film’s title is slightly misleading,
as it does not actually show how the apes managed to take over the planet. This
is only the very beginning, the event that slowly began to tip the scales, the
summit of the slippery slope. What happens afterwards is only inferred by the
existence of the original movie, and the audience must fill in the missing
years for themselves. A nice little touch early on in this film references the
main character in the original. A suggestion at the end perhaps explains how
the intelligence-virus spread over the world, and how the apes managed to take
advantage of depleted populations in order to gain control. Still, the details
are left a mystery.

This
is how to do a prequel. It doesn’t need to be set right before the original
film; it doesn’t need to cram in as many character and cameo appearances from
the original as it can; it doesn’t need to fill in every hole and explain every
little thing, even the things no-one was asking about (midichlorians?); and it
certainly doesn’t need to bleach all the mystery out of the original (Star Wars
prequels I’m looking at you). A prequel should always add something to the
original rather than attempt to take over from it. Well done Rise of the Planet
of the Apes. You need to hire a better title-writer though.

No
matter how much you think you won’t care about what, when it comes down to it,
is actually a fairly overused and obvious story in sci-fi terms, you will
probably find that you can’t help it. Caesar is just too sympathetic, the
characters too charismatic, and James Franco’s eyes too puppy dog. I didn’t
find it groundbreaking, and I wasn’t falling off my seat with excitement, but
it was unexpectedly thoughtful and enjoyable. I was impressed.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Hi, I'm Victoria, a writer and editor living in Nottingham. I love writing stories, reading books, playing games, watching films and TV, and talking endlessly about them afterwards. I particularly love anything sci-fi or fantasy, magic and the paranormal, history, so-bad-they're-goods, and everything MagicScience.
Welcome to Vicky Thinks, my place to ramble, review and talk about stories!